Oh. No. You. Did. Not.
I got on Tumblr for the first time in a while today, and, to my intense chagrin, discovered a trend wherein which people identify themselves as “MRA”s, or “Men’s Rights Activists.” Naturally, the entire existence of this trend makes my stomach turn, but because I am a glutton for disappointment in the human race, I set off on a journey to research what exactly these MRAs thought legitimized their cause. I found, unfortunately to my sanity, a subReddit page of anonymous internet posters whining about male inequality in Western society.
On this page, I also found a link to a video “correcting” Miss Utah’s stumbling embarrassment of an answer to a question about income disparity between genders during the recent Miss USA pageant.
After posting a comment on said video with language I am not proud of, because it’s 1am and there is such a thing as “Men’s Rights Activists,” I scrolled through some of the other comments, hoping to find a fellow reasonable human being to share my gripes. Instead, I found this:
In my view, everyone is missing the REAL point. Yes, the stats are false & misleading. BUT, beyond that: Was it really appropriate to be asking these Feminist-Orientated Questions in the first place? This is a routine habit on their part. If you go back to previous Miss USA Pageants; the Judges would ask senseless questions just for the sake of pushing feminist dogma. Do you catch my drift?
Oh, Mr “BozoClownface” (if that IS your real name…), I believe I did catch your drift. That is, if by “your drift” you were abbreviating “my incredibly ignorant and unfounded belief that any question asked of a beauty pageant contestant that brings up actual issues regarding women being seen as equal humans is dogma against my manhood.” I’m sorry, was that too complicated for your Bozo Clownface brain of yours? Then let me make this very simple:
You are a cockroach.
Right, sorry, name-calling isn’t productive. I made that statement over and over again in the comments section of my Veronica Mars “Straw Feminist” video whilst arguing with someone who called the famous internet feminist Anita Sarkeesian a “bastard.” But here’s the thing: when you post comments talking about how it’s bad that pageant contestants are getting asked “Feminist-Oriented Questions”, or, in the real world, “Questions of actual significance to gender issues”, and on your YouTube channel you have a playlist entitled “White People Settled U.S.A., thousands of years ago“, I am pretty confident my calling you a cockroach is both accurate and earned. But it’s not productive.
What is productive is critically looking at what these “MRA”s are discussing and calling them out for their aggressively ignorant tomfoolery. The best example of this that I’ve seen is a Tumblr post by one of my favorite webcomic artists David Willis, the full text of which you can read here.
“Feminism is Black History Month. Â MRAs are those douchebags who whine about there not being a white history month.” -David Willis
Sorry, I was going to end this blog right there, with that poignant quote, but I went back to the subReddit to get a link and found this article, where I found this quote:
Discriminatory laws and policies have been set in place within western governments by feminists influence that allow legal bigotry against men, while not one law or policy that discriminates against women, in any way, is on the books.
Instead of using my interweb skillz to find whoever wrote this article and target them with the massive amounts of hate that this kind of statement deserves, I’m going to give you a series of links discussing how discrimination of women is an ever-present truth of our society. From them, I hope that BozoClownhead and his friends infer that it’s a much larger priority than the women in their lives no longer making them sammiches.
Hayley Hoover on Slut Shaming.
Anita Sarkeesian on Straw Feminists.
Love,
Bri
I just want to make sure you aware that
a) Your anger is well-founded.
and
b) Not all men are total bigotry-filled cockroaches. . .
I was in the same place you are now when I found out about MRAs a couple of years ago doing research for my Women’s Studies class. It’s one of those things I wish I could change, but there will always be stupid people with misinformed views and the best I can do is what you did in the end: put out the positive message of change and don’t waste energy on confronting each and every one of them. You have better, more awesome things to spend your time on.:)
In the interest of legitimate discussion. What is it about this image that you find “egregiously insulting”?
I see an image that is pointing out that, in order for sex to be consensual, the gentleman involved has to want it too.
It also seems that you are attacking a group, based on their representation in youtube comments and reddit posts. I feel that any group that is judged based on their vocals in youtube comments and reddit posts, would be cast in a very ugly light.
Mhhhhhh, where to start. Okay, first thing first.
This image disgusts you? Why? Is it the fact that it is asserting that men also have to give consent? Are you implying by your disgust of this image that men should be able to be raped and they shouldn’t be allowed to object? Are you disgusted from a visual interpretation perspective? For example, that the females body image reinforces mostly unobtainable standards for women? I could understand that.
Or is it that you’re disgusted that MRA’s exist? I think it’s the first and last point. So it’s good to have feminists in the world but if there is a gender disparity to the detriment of men we should just sit down, shut up and take it? That is the exact reason MRA’s exist. Because this idea of “check your privilege and shut up” completely silences the voice of men and stops us from being able to say “I don’t agree with this.” This supposed patriarchal driven privilege men have is the exact reason we don’t have a privilege at all. Because that supposed privilege we had (but really didn’t have) is the drive towards the view of “shut up and check your privilege you pig” which then negates any supposed privilege we had in the first place (but actually never existed).
Second: Laci Green. Laci is a very intelligent woman and she’s 100% correct. There is a rape culture. Well, the way I perceive the world is that there is a rape dichotomy, I hope I’m not incorrect belief.
‘Chotomy’- uno: College frat boy types engaging in (hopefully) unintentional rape of drunken girls at parties because they are insufficiently educated at how wrong this is and how it is 100% undeniable rape. This is no less rape than violent rape at knife point so please don’t think I’m excusing it. I think, in this instance, feminists are correct that you can “teach men not to rape.” But please don’t use that phrase, it’s incredibly offensive to a whole gender, it doesn’t actually achieve it’s intended purpose, so it’s pointless anyway. It should be, more accurately “teach college boys what is rape” but that doesn’t really have the punch of “all men are evil perpetrators of the patriarchy” doesn’t it.
Also, 4Chan trolls perpetuating ‘supposed’ rape culture to elicit response aren’t perpetuating rape culture, well technically they kind of are ‘perpetuating’ it bit they don’t actually agree with rape or support it. 4Chan trolls are not rape apologists, they’re just baiting a response. Just don’t reply to them, please.
‘Chotomy’- dos: Basically “men can’t be raped.” Men can’t say no (what this picture educates against), male rape victims shouldn’t be taken seriously ect. This, I presume, is what rape culture was supposed to be about. Women not having their assault taken seriously, them being blamed for the incident ect. EXCEPT MOST OF THIS SH** IS PERPETUATED ON THE INTERNET by ‘chotomy’ uno; 4Chan’ers looking to bait and college boys misinterpreting sexual harassment type things (such as cat calling) as okay. Note, there is large crossover between the two groups of ‘chotomy’ uno.
Final thoughts on Laci Green? I love watching her videos. She’s funny and she educates on serious issues, rather than just shouting in peoples faces, which doesn’t work, seriously, we just drone out.
Source two: HayleyHoover. I watched some of her videos and I think she was a good source to use to help affirm your point.
Source three: Anita Sarkeesian. Sorry, did not refer to this source of ‘information’. I personally don’t see her opinions as credible to use in most situations.
I’ll wrap this up now.
MRA’s are needed because there isn’t actually a patriarchy or male privilege and the perpetuation of such a concept leads to the easy suppression of a males right to have a voice like everyone else. Yes, men do face real problems, things such as the very real threat of being violently attacked on the street for no reason. I wont drone on ‘too’ much but there’s just one reason to start.
I do agree we need feminism but is is definitely not for gender equality. Gender equality is for gender equality. There are numerous gender disparities to the detriment of both genders. Feminists focus passionately on raising the standards where women are to detriment and MRA’s focus on issues to the detriment of males. I’m making it clear, the individuals may want equality but the ideologies are specifically for the betterment of the names genders where they experience hardship. Disagree? Refer to the names of the ideologies.
Last word. I’ve tried to be polite and positive to the discussion so if these comments are moderated I’d love you to publish this. It’d be a shame to be silenced just for having a differing opinion.
I’m going to address the majority of this comment in a future blog, so please check back in the next week or so for that. The main thing I want to respond to right now is the idea that my disgust over the image I used is related to my not believing men could be raped. That is categorically untrue. Yes, men can be raped, and that’s awful, because rape, regardless of if the teenager knew it was rape, is awful. My anger at the picture is that it’s almost a form of slut shaming, in that it’s implying that women being attractive are rapists because men can’t say no to them. Honestly, there are better images for me to have used in this article, and I’ll go find one before I make my larger reply to the more… controversial points in your comment. I’m sorry if you or anyone else thought I was dismissing male rape, because I was not. I was dismissing this particular “PSA” about male rape, and more broadly dismissing the frankly hysterical idea of Men’s Rights Activists.
For now, I’ll leave you with this:
“Bias is NOT the same thing as Discrimination. Sexism (towards females and other gender minorities) and racism (towards people of color) are deeply engrained, institutional, indoctrinated ideologies with long and violent histories.” -via http://just-smith.tumblr.com/post/19068283764/reverse-sexism-racism-does-not-exist
Also, since you like Laci Green, I suggest watching this video to better understand what feminism is and why it actually does seek to help with men’s issues as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwJRFClybmk
I am aware i am kind of late to the party on this but Im going to post anyway.
I became an MRA not because of some sort of choice but because the campus feminist organization at my university labeled me one. You see I had the audacity to try and form a support group on campus for men who were sexually assaulted. You see my crime that offended the feminists on campus so much was that i said “female on male sexual assault happens and is not rare.” An assortment of campus Womyns groups picketed the first meeting shouting threats and saying that we were trivializing rape. The student union had informed them that if they spray painted objects orange improvised weapons could be brought to their protest and they would easily be identified as tools.
I have never seen a feminist speak out against this behavior without needing prompting.
Feminists, that is to say organized feminists with any real power, have firmly marked their territory on the term rape, At an administrative level In the US, The FBI developed a new definition, which many feminists and organizations are proud to say they had input into, used specific language to qualify rape as an act of penetration. Meaning that a woman can force a man into sex and it will not be rape unless she sticks something up his ass or something. This was followed closely by the NIPSVS in 2010 which found that 1.1% of women and 1.1% of men reported being forced into sex but stated that women were raped and men were “Other-Made to penetrate’d” This was due to Mary Koss’ opinion that men forced into sex with women are simply “ambivalent about their sexual desires”. These are hardly isolated examples, virtually the entire feminist discourse around rape is that men do it to women end of story (i will admit that they occasionally talk about male on male rape). The rare occasion that female on male sexual abuse is looked at its usually apathetic if not hostile towards victims.
But you, sitting there behind you blog have extended a little open letter to people like me, people who work to help male victims of sexual abuse, set up resources for men facing violent relationships, people who campaign to make it illegal to cut healthy tissue off of any babies genitals, we make your stomach turn because you saw a picture you didn’t like and read some nasty things on reddit.
PMS much? Ya dumb cunt
Class act, you are.
Does that make you feel important?